


No Claims to Goodness

by DownToTheSea



Category: His Dark Materials (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Still Enemies But Slightly Friendlier, Gen, Referenced Canonical Child Harm/Death, trapped together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27055195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DownToTheSea/pseuds/DownToTheSea
Summary: Lee and Mrs. Coulter have a run-in.
Relationships: Marisa Coulter & Lee Scoresby
Comments: 14
Kudos: 30
Collections: Fic In A Box





	No Claims to Goodness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janetcarter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janetcarter/gifts).



> Set in a canon-divergence AU where Lee's mission to find Stanislaus Grumman takes him in a little different of a direction than it does in the book.
> 
> Does contain a little of Coulter being not great to her daemon (nothing physical, more on the emotional neglect side.)

“Well, Hester,” said Lee. “I believe we've gotten ourselves into a bit of a scrape.”

She snorted from the other side of the ruined balloon. “If I had a nickel for every time you said that…”

“I know, it'd be more than you could carry.”

“It'd be more than  _ you  _ could carry,” she retorted.

Lee stooped, getting a handful of balloon and inspecting it mournfully. “What's it like on your end?”

He heard Hester hopping to and fro, picking over the damage. “Not as bad as it could be,” she reported. “Just a few dings on the frame, but a lot of punctures. Big ones. I don't know if our patches are gonna be enough.”

Lee stepped back, surveying. It was much the same on his end. “Not much we can do but start sewing her up and hope for the best. At least we landed on solid ground.”

“Landed,” repeated Hester with another snort. “That's a nice way of putting it.” Perfectly at ease with the height, she leapt to the edge of the cliff outcropping they had landed – alright, crashed – on, and stared at the sky, ears twitching. “What do you think of those clouds on the horizon?” 

“Trying not to think about ‘em, actually!”

“Lee,” she said softly.

Alerted by her tone, he clapped his mouth shut and picked his way over to join her. Below them, though not far enough for his liking, there was another ship: one of the Magisterium's big zeppelins. This one had been chasing them for days, before both of them got hit hard by an ice storm a while back and kept at the chase until they limped onto this mountain range. Lee had seen it crash from his balloon, but he had hoped they had landed much farther down the mountain side, out of reach until he could get back up and running.

“Think they saw where we crashed?”

“Landed,” Lee whispered back. She rolled her eyes. “And I hope not. Looks like they got bigger problems, anyway.”

There was a cloud of black smoke billowing out of where he thought the engine would be. That would probably be harder to fix than a few tears… or at least, that was the hope.

“We'd better hurry,” she murmured, uneasy. “An awful lotta bad headed our way.”

“We've made it through worse,” Lee said, wishing he were as confident as he sounded. “C’mon, let's get to work.”

Lee was an old hand by now at mending broken things in the balloon (or, in the case of some of his worn-out gauges and meters, hitting them until they started working again) but he had only just managed to patch up the largest of the tears, figuring it was better to start with the biggest job and leave the smaller for later, when he couldn't see as well. It made Hester nervous to have to sit by and do nothing while he worked, but her paws were hardly suited to it. So she kept watch for him, peering down at the mountain face beneath them and keeping an eye on the crashed Magisterium ship.

“Movement down there,” she had reported earlier in the day, soon after they landed. “Maybe a half dozen men. Not headed our way.”

Lee's hands had stilled for a moment before continuing, imperceptibly faster than before. “Not our problem then. Scouting, most likely.” As long as the Magisterium remained uninterested in him, their chances of getting out of here alive remained comfortably high.

An hour later, the storm had begun to announce itself, thunder echoing over the valleys and distant flashes lighting up the rock face. The sky was a charcoal-grey now, the wind kicking up to whip Lee's hair into his eyes and make his work nigh impossible. It was all he could do just to keep the balloon from flying off the cliffside.

Suddenly, Hester darted to his side. “Someone else,” she hissed. “Coming our way.”

Cursing, Lee stowed his tools as quickly as he could. He wished he could have simply dropped them, but this wind might blow something away and they couldn’t afford to waste anything. “How many?”

“Just one. Couldn't make out much.”

Lee drew his revolver, checking that it was loaded. “Storm’ll hit soon. How long we got before our guest arrives?”

“A few minutes tops. I didn't see ‘em until they were through one of the gulleys down there.” Hester sounded guilty, and he patted her head lightly.

“‘S ok, Hester. Can't be everywhere at once.”

Every now and again – rarely – he would catch a breath of yearning from Hester, when she thought of how they once thought she would settle as a bird. She was thinking that now, he could tell. From the air, she could have done a better job watching for him.

“Now, Hester,” he said sternly. “None of that, you hear? You know I'd never want you any different than you are.”

“Smooth talker,” she grumbled, but her ears perked up.

They retreated into the shelter of the basket, its canvas coverings still stretched tight across the frame and providing a cave of sorts for them to hide in.

There in the dark, with the wind howling around the mountaintops outside, they waited, Lee's hand closed around his revolver. It did take a few minutes – whoever it was wasn't hurrying – for Hester to pick up the noise of a footstep outside. She nudged Lee. He held his breath.

The footsteps approached until even he could hear them. Slowly, he brought his revolver up to cover the entrance.

The noise stopped just shy of the balloon. There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of cracking thunder.

Then a smooth voice cut through. “I know you're in there. I can assure you I won't come in until you've given me your word not to shoot me on sight.”

“Well, so much for the element of surprise,” Lee muttered.

The voice continued. It was rich and velvety warm. Lee felt an instinctual tug to trust it, and fought it down. Whoever this was, they worked for the Magisterium, and that meant nothing good.

“I don't wish to hurt you, either. In fact I think we could both be of some help to each other, Mr. Scoresby.”

“You know my name,” Lee called out. “But I don't believe I have the honor of knowing yours.”

“Of course. My name is Marisa Coulter. I believe you know my daughter, Lyra.”

His fingers, suddenly numb, nearly lost their grip on the revolver. That was Lyra's mother out there, and the infamous Mrs. Coulter besides. He had known the Magisterium was hot on his tail, but he hadn't known  _ she  _ was too. His life had just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated.

Lee knew the balloon like the back of his hand. If he edged over just so, he might be able to catch a glimpse of her without giving his own position away, through one of the rips in the canvas shelter around the basket. Hester had been pestering him to fix it for months. Slowly, he eased over until he could just barely see her in the tiny gap.

It was surprisingly easy to see the resemblance to Lyra. Their features were similar, and beyond that there was a… stubborn quality about the face that reminded him of her daughter. But on Mrs. Coulter's face it seemed harder, hungrier. Isolated, like a queen looking down on her kingdom.

Her golden monkey daemon was beside her, crouching at her feet, its fur dull from the grey cloud cover. Her coat whipped around her knees, but her hands seemed to be empty.

Carefully, he moved out until they faced each other, his gun still leveled at her.

“Ah.” She tilted her head and smiled at him. To a casual observer it would have seemed that her features relaxed, relieved that he had seen the light and was obviously going to trust her now. But Lee was anything but casual around her, and he saw the tightness around her eyes. “Hello, Mr. Scoresby. It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person.”

“Wish I could say the same.”

She gave a light little laugh, as if they were at a society party and he had just said something particularly witty. “Come, Mr. Scoresby. Put your gun away. We both know you aren't going to kill me.”

“Do we now,” said Lee, more to stall, and to see if he could induce a crack in that perfect veneer, than as an actual threat. She had him in a box and they all knew it. Even if he was enough of a snake to shoot someone unarmed, which he wasn't, he could never have harmed Lyra's mother, no matter what she had done.

She took a careful step forward, testing him. Her daemon followed. “I think we do,” she said, still with that gentle smile. “Do you want to know what I think, Lee – may I call you Lee?”

“Sure. All my enemies do.”

A pouting expression appeared on her face. “Oh, but I would like to be your friend, Lee. Because I think we have the same goal, really. We both want what's best for Lyra.”

“Lyra might have a few things to say on that score,” Lee said.

“I don't know what she's told you about me, but she's just a child. She can't understand – ”

“Think she understands you hurting innocent kids just fine,” Lee interrupted. “And it sounds to me like she did a pretty good job of wrecking your operation all by her lonesome. Saw the ruins myself. That's gonna take some cleanup.” Pride crept into his tone, even if he gave an exaggerated grimace to annoy Mrs. Coulter.

That did get under her skin; he saw a flicker of rage in her eyes before she got herself back under control. He wondered if it was because he had reminded her of her failure, or if it was because he was daring to be proud of  _ her _ daughter acting in such an unacceptable manner.

She changed tacks. “That doesn't matter now. I admit that my efforts in the North of our world were perhaps… somewhat misguided. All I want now is to find Lyra and keep her safe, whatever happens next. In that I think we are the same.”

Lee shifted uncomfortably. This was getting dangerously close to his mission, to find Stanislaus Grumman and the powerful weapon that could protect Lyra. If Mrs. Coulter found out about it, there was no telling what she would do with a weapon like that.

“Suppose I believe you.” He didn't, but there was no reason for her to know why he was actually changing the subject. “Even if I did, what use am I to you? You've got a nice shiny zeppelin down there – rough shape, I'll grant, but a lot better than this old bucket once you get the engine running.” Also not strictly true. He mentally apologized to his poor balloon.

“So unless you're looking to round out for a hand of cards, I can't rightly see why we shouldn't both be on our way, all the better for having had this lovely little conversation.”

More thunder boomed through the mountains, and rain started pelting down. Mrs. Coulter didn't flinch.

“Shall we step inside?” She gestured to the balloon as though it were  _ her  _ domain and she was magnanimously granting him entrance. This annoyed both Lee and Hester, who had until now been content to silently observe their exchange. She jumped out from behind his leg and stood in the entrance, blocking it and giving a challenging stare at Coulter's daemon.

“Or we can stay out here,” Coulter added, so smoothly you might have thought that was what she had preferred all along. In fact Lee found himself wondering if, despite Hester only seeing one figure approaching, she didn't have some snipers tucked away somewhere. What had happened to that scouting squad from earlier, anyway? Maybe he was playing right into her hands…

She was good at getting into people's heads.

“How about you just tell me what you want me for.”

She shrugged. “Very well. I have a deal to offer you, Lee. Tell me what you know about Stanislaus Grumman – everything you know – and I will let you finish your repairs and fly away from this place in safety. If you don't…” She smiled at him. “Well. I'm sure I needn't spell it out for you.”

Lee was cold all over by the time she had finished this speech. He opened his mouth to deny that he knew what she was talking about, but she held up a hand to forestall him.

“Please. We have an alethiometer at our disposal, Mr. Scoresby. Did you really think we wouldn't know what you were up to?”

A thought occurred to him. “If you've got an alethiomathingy…”

Hester glared at him, warning him to stop prodding the sleeping bear. Well, maybe she had a point. Lee had dealt with Iorek right after he woke up and right now Mrs. Coulter seemed about as dangerous.

He finished the thought anyway. “What's stopping you from using it to find Lyra instead of chasing after little old me? Seeing as how keeping her safe is your top priority and all.” Not that Lyra wasn't safer far away from Mrs. Coulter, wherever that happened to be.

A muscle in her cheek twitched. “I… The Magisterium sees fit to secure this weapon before concerning itself with one errant child. I go where my duty takes me.”

“You sound real happy about that,” Lee observed. “Seems like not so long ago the Magisterium was asking how high when you told them to jump.”

Her face contorted. “I am a patient woman, but you are testing me,” she hissed, before she mastered herself once more. “I would highly suggest cooperating,” she went on, now sweet as roses. “I would hate to be forced to harm one of Lyra's friends.”

“You'd hate to harm one of Lyra's friends,” Lee repeated flatly. Hester shivered. “I guess you don't remember Billy Costa?”

Mrs. Coulter's expression soured once more. “That was an unfortunate… accident. I would never have allowed anything to happen to the boy if I'd known it would affect Lyra.”

Chills crept up Lee's neck. “You know what's scary? I think you mean every word of that.”

There was a silent moment while she contemplated him. “I assure you, Mr. Scoresby, I can be quite scary, as you put it.”

“Oh, I believe that.”

“So I ask you again: will you tell me what I want to know?” She took another step towards him. “I know you wish to find this weapon to ensure it's used to protect Lyra.  _ I  _ will make certain of that. Absolutely certain. If you know anything about me, then you know I will let nothing stand in my way. Grumman has powers of his own, and he has proven remarkably adept at thwarting our alethiometer. The longer he evades us, the longer Lyra is all alone out there, lost, in another world…”

She seemed to have sunk into the fantasy story she was spinning him; he saw genuine pain in her eyes.

“Tell me what I want to know.” Her voice was low, musical and raw at the same time.

Lee had distracted and delayed as best he could for as long as he could, but it didn't seem that she was willing to let him push off the decision any more. His mind whirled furiously. There were still a solid couple of hours left of work to do on the balloon before he could fly out of here, and even after that nothing was preventing the Magisterium from shooting him out of the sky the moment he did. He didn't see a way out unless he cooperated with her, but he would as soon light his balloon on fire and toss if off this cliff than deliver Grumman's weapon into Mrs. Coulter's hands, no matter what fancy lies she told him about keeping Lyra safe.

Could he lie to her in turn? Would their alethiometer be able to tell? Lyra could read the thing as easily as a card sharp counted cards, but he'd heard it took most people hours to decipher the layers of meaning behind the symbols, if not days or even weeks. With any luck he would be far away by then.

Then again, she was Lyra's mother. Lies were as familiar to her as breathing.

He made up his mind to try anyway. It seemed like the only option he had, even if it was a bad one.

But no sooner had he opened his mouth to start spinning tall tales than a brilliant bolt of lightning flashed up on the mountain peak, and a sound like a hundred gunshots all fired at the same time cracked above their heads. The ground started rumbling beneath his boots.

He spun and looked up. A chunk of the mountain had been blasted off, and even in the darkness he could see the dust cloud headed their way. The balloon was sheltered slightly under an overhang of rock; it was his best option.

He glanced back at Mrs. Coulter. “Come on!” he shouted, knowing he would most likely regret this. But he couldn't just stand by and let Lyra's mother get crushed.

She hesitated, maybe suspecting him of some ploy –  _ she  _ probably would've had one in his place. Or maybe she was just entranced by the sheer power of the display in front of her; she was staring up at the collapsing mountain, eyes shining wildly, lips pulled back into a feral snarl. Finally her instincts kicked in and she darted for the relative safety of the balloon, her monkey daemon at her heels.

Hester jumped into Lee's arms and they crouched together at the back of the balloon, watching the entrance. Mrs. Coulter joined him there, though she kept a good amount of distance between them. The monkey daemon followed, gazing at Lee and Hester with a strange look. He reached for Mrs. Coulter's hand, but she didn't spare him a glance.

When the rocks came down, it happened so fast he could hardly follow it. Crashes sounded from all around them, then a boom above their heads and a bone-rattling tremor. He pulled Hester tighter against him and bent his head, curling up around her.

A moment later, it was all over. The rumbling had mostly stopped, though he heard it heading down further away from them. Lifting his head, he saw a pile of rocks blocking off the balloon's entrance, some of them rolling in to rest near their feet. Wet dust rose off them, stinging his eyes. A few smaller stones were still bouncing around, but nothing struck them, and within moments everything had settled. It seemed too quiet all of a sudden, with the sound of the storm outside blocked off.

Lee fumbled around in the dark, found the anbaric torch he kept around for emergencies, and clicked it on. He swept the beam over the interior of the balloon first – Mrs. Coulter was pale but unshaken, her daemon unharmed, and the frame looked intact – before training it over the rocks.

He grimaced. They weren’t budging those any time soon, not by themselves.

“As soon as the storm ends, my men will come looking for me,” Mrs. Coulter said. “They will have us cleared out of here in no time at all.”

If Lee hadn’t known better, he would have said she had somehow arranged for this to happen. She seemed so darn smug.

“You  _ were  _ going to cooperate, weren’t you?” she added.

“Seems I don’t have much choice,” Lee said, sidestepping around the question.

Her eyes narrowed.

He played the torch beam around in patterns on the shadowed canvas. It seemed to annoy her, so he kept doing it.

“We might be waiting a while,” he said after an uncomfortable silence. “Up for a game of cards? I hear I deal a mean hand, but at least it’s fair.”

“I don’t play cards.”

“Oh, right. Gambling being a sin and all that.  _ Murder _ , though…” He eyed her.

“I do what I have to for the good of us all,” she said sharply. “Life is not a game to me, Mr. Scoresby, no matter what it may be to you.”

“Nor to me,” he said, more honest than he’d meant to be. “I don't like going where somebody else directs. My fate is my own, my choices, you understand, good or bad.”

“I suppose, living as an outlaw on the fringes of society, you would possess a certain freedom,” Mrs. Coulter said. She was staring at him with what might have been jealousy. “But some of us have to abide by the rules of the world we find ourselves in.”

“That’s true,” he allowed. “And some of you choose to enforce rules you know aren’t right.”

Disdain flashed across her features. “You really believe  _ you  _ can sit in judgement of  _ me?” _

“I make no claims to goodness. But I’ll tell you one thing: I would give up anything to keep Lyra safe and happy. Can you say the same?”

Her mouth closed and she sat back like he'd struck her. She stared past him, unseeing.

Of course, it could have been just another mind game, but he didn’t think so. She was shaken, as vulnerable as he'd seen her yet. Her daemon looked up at her, and Lee almost thought the monkey looked confused.

At last, she whispered, “I don’t know.”

“Well, whenever you figure it out,” Lee said grimly, “I hope Lyra isn’t the one who pays the price for your indecision.”

Her face didn’t change, but something about the way the monkey crouched down again made him think he’d touched a nerve. Outside, the rain began to let up. Lee wondered how many Magisterium soldiers would be out there by the time they got free.

“Tell me about Lyra,” Coulter said abruptly.

He raised his eyebrows. “Sorry?”

A wry smile curved her lips. “You’ve spent more time with her than I have. I… I want to know what she’s like.”

Lee looked at her for a moment, flummoxed. “I wish I could,” he said at last. “You’ve got a pretty incredible daughter. But I can’t, ‘cause you’ve done nothing to make me think you won’t turn around and use anything I tell you against her. I don’t even know that Lyra’d want you to know anything more. You certainly haven’t earned it on account of your nice compassionate self.”

There was that flash of fire again. He was getting pretty good at riling her up, Lee reflected. Though given Hester's increasingly pointed nudging, he might want to tone it down a notch if he wanted to make it off this mountain alive.

Still, not a word he’d spoken had been untrue, and even Coulter had to know it.

Beyond the piled rocks, he heard shouts and the sound of stones being moved aside. His hand drifted to the rifle strapped down near him in the basket, preparing himself for a fight, no matter how hopeless it was likely to be.

“Did you really mean it?” she asked suddenly, rising half to her feet in agitation. “What you said about being willing to do anything for my daughter? Quickly.”

If he hadn’t known better, he might almost have said she was afraid of being overheard by the men outside. He nodded.

She sat back now and considered him with a calculating gaze for some time. “I will see to it that you leave here in one piece, Mr. Scoresby,” she said at last.

Lee looked at her doubtfully. He didn’t trust her on a good day, and even he could think of half a dozen ways that promise could be twisted up to mean anything she wanted.

“I will,” she said with vicious assurance. “Find my daughter, and do whatever is necessary to keep her safe.”

He considered her. Maybe she meant it, and even if she didn’t, it was a chance he hadn’t had ten minutes ago. “I will,” he echoed. “But you’ll forgive me if I don’t take your hand on it.”

She smiled, and he couldn’t tell if this one was any more or less genuine than the others. “I would think less of you if you did, Mr. Scoresby.”

**Author's Note:**

> You have no idea how hard it was for me to resist making them snuggle for warmth. I SHIP IT NOW THANKS


End file.
